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PEACE- 

AT ANY PRICE 




PORTER EMERSON BROWNE 



/ 




Class 
Book 



Copyright)!". 



COPYRfGHT DEPOSm 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/peaceatanypriceOObrow 



Peace— at Any Price 



,^. 




''The Great Pacifist . . . begins to sing himself to sleep'' 

[Page 20] 



^ Peace— 
at Any Price 



By 

Porter Emerson Browne 




Illustrations by 

Peter Newell *^ 



D. Appleton and Company 

New York London 

1916 



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ta"" 









.^^/a? vf^ 



Copyright, 1916, by / 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



Copyright, 1916, by The McClurb Publications, Inc. 



Printed in the United States of America 



APR -4 i9l6 ' 
©CIA427506 



List of Illustrations 

"The Great Pacifist . • . begins to sing him- 
self to sleep." . . • . Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

"Two of the neatest back somersaults I ever 
saw done by amateurs." ... 20 

"The force of his swing turns him around 
three times." 30 

"Breaking all records for altitude and sus- 
tained flight." ... . . 40 

"The pitcher ... hit the celebrated Steel 
Magnate in the place where he kept his 
indigestion." 50 

* *The celebrated Steel Magnate, to save him- 
self, grabbed Oswald in a death grip." 60 



Peace — at Any Price 

Is AW him the morning after. He 
had a cut hp, the knuckles of his 
right hand were swollen, and his left 
eye was the color of an apple that has 
lain too long, 

"Well, what in the world happened 
to you?" I demanded; for, since he 
was one of the most peaceable chaps 
I had ever known, and had long since 
attained years of discretion, to say 
that I was surprised would be put- 
ting it very mildly. "Where were 
you last night, anyway?" # 

[7] 



Peace— at Any Price 

He gently stroked the knuckles of 
his right hand. 

"At the peace meeting," he re- 
turned. 

"Peace meeting!" I exclaimed. 

"At first," he answered. "Then I 
was around at the police station for 
a while." 

"But, good heavens!" I cried. 
"They didn't do all that to you at a 
peace meeting!" 

He smiled. It wasn't a very good 
smile, owing to the condition of eye 
and lip; but it held beneath it much. 

"If you think I'm bad," he said, 
"you ought to see the rest of 'em." 

"But a peace meeting! With the 
Great Pacifist present!" I began. 

[8] 



Peace— at Any Price 

"You ought to see him in particu- 
lar. He looks like Seventh Avenue 
looked just after the subway caved 
in." 

I was frankly and amazedly in- 
comprehensive. I knew well of the 
meeting of which he spoke, as who 
did not? It had been a great gather- 
ing of those in favor of Peace at any 
Price. It had been held in the great- 
est convention hall of America's 
greatest city. And greater than all, 
there had been present none other 
than the Great Pacifist Himself! 
And now came one who had been 
there, bearing a Van Dyke orb and 
a lacerated lip, to say nothing of sun- 
dry swollen knuckles ! 
3 [9] 



Peace— at Any Price 

''Didn't you see today's papers?" 
he asked, anticipating my flow of 
questions. 

"Why, no," I said. 

''It's got everything backed off the 
front page except the weather and 
the date." He smiled again. "It 
was certainly the most surprising 
peace meeting I ever saw; and," he 
added, tentatively fingering his ma- 
roon optic, "the busiest. It hadn't 
been going an hour before the dove of 
peace in his excitement swallowed the 
olive branch, and I'll bet eight million 
candareens, which is forty cents in our 
money, that he hasn't lit since." 

"Tell me about it," I urged. 

And he did. 

[10] 



Peace— at Any Price 

I was sort of poking around last 
night, with nothing on my mind but 
my hat, and nowhere to go but out 
— you know the kind of an evening 
I mean — ^where you've seen all the 
shows and they're bad, and you don't 
want to go to your clubs because 
somebody's sure to want you to do 
something you don't want to, and 
you don't think much of your married 
friends because they have wives, and 
of your single ones because they 
haven't, and the weather's too pleas- 
ant to stay indoors and yet not pleas- 
ant enough to stay out, and you can't 
think of anything you'd like to eat 
or drink, or anywhere you want to 
go — Well, that's the way I was. 

[11] 



Peace— at Any Price 

So I walked up the street, and turned 
to the left, and walked back again, 
and sat down, and got up again, and 
walked some more. 

Finally I turned into Seventh 
Avenue. And happening to look 
ahead, I saw halfway down the 
block a flock of sea-going automo- 
biles and a crowd of people all going 
into a large building that looked like 
a cross between a union station and a 
storage warehouse — that is, the peo- 
ple were going in, I mean, not the 
automobiles. 

''Hello," I says to myself, "what's 
all this to-do?" 

Not having anything better to do, 
I walks down the block to see. And, 

[12] 



Peace— at Any Price 

arriving at the premises, I finds out 
that, as I've begun to suspect, it's 
the great peace meeting, where those 
in favor of Peace at any Price had 
foregathered from all over the coun- 
try to express at length their ab- 
sence of views regarding the sub- 
ject. 

As you know, the papers had been 
advertising it for days, the press 
agents working in shifts to let the 
public know about it. If all the edi- 
torials for and against it could have 
been cut out and pasted end to end, 
they would have reached from Kam- 
chatka to Beluchistan and halfway 
back to Peapack, N- J. And the con- 
versation that had been expended in 

[13] 



Peace— at Any Price 

arguments about it would have kept 
all the windmills in Holland going 
for three hundred and thirty-two 
years. And, to cap the climax, and 
put the finishing touches on, and 
paint the lily, and otherwise round 
out an already completely globular 
evening, there was to be present the 
Great Pacifist Himself, raven locks, 
silver tongue, and all, or vice versa, 
to explain to the listening multitudes 
as to how the best way to be prepared 
is to be entirely unready. 

I stands there for a while, watch- 
ing the people go in and listening to 
the conversation, pro and con — 
mostly con. And I notices that most 

of the pros, while long on conversa- 

[14] 



Peace— at Any Price 

tion, are short on foreheads and 
chins; though in the latter case, in 
many instances, whiskers helped a 
lot. 

Finally the idea comes to me to 
ease myself in for a while and see 
what it looks like inside. It isn't very 
liable to be exciting, I know; but I 
feels sure it will be as funny as any- 
thing else I might do. And I figures 
that if I'm really out to waste time, 
this is the place of places to do it. 
So, getting between a couple of dig- 
nified-looking Peace-at-any-Pricers 
with silk hats, whose Mission style of 
architecture makes 'em look as though 
they'll be soft to lean against in case 
I'm kept waiting in the crowd, I 

[15] 



Peace— at Any Price 

begins to mobilize myself toward the 
portals. 

Well, by and by, after being 
tossed about like chips in the turbu- 
lent sea of humanity, we wafts up the 
steps and into the hall. It's packed 
to the guards. I tries to squirm out 
from between the two Arts and 
Crafts gentlemen that have served 
me so well in keeping the paint from 
being scraped off; but just as I'm 
making it, along comes a gentle- 
manly usher. 

"Ah!" says the gentlemanly usher 

in a ladylike manner. ''Why, good 

evening!" and he bows inclusively to 

the two Morris chair gentlemen and 

pie, who am more of the Heppel- 

[16] 



Peace— at Any Price 

white period. And I sees at once 
that he recognizes them and thinks 
he does me. 

''Right this way," he says, bow- 
ing, and he turns down the aisle. 

"One moment, friend," I says. 
''When I immersed myself between 
these two dignitaries," I says, "I 
didn't expect a ring-side seat at this 
peace orgy. I would much prefer 
to camp out somewhere near a fire 
exit in case the pacifical ratiocina- 
tions become so ineluctable that my 
abbreviated intellect passes 'em up 
and I decide to go out and have din- 
ner with myself at the Automat res- 
taurant. In which case " 

But the ladylike usher smiles 
[17] 



Peace— at Any Price 

blandly and unhearingly on me in 
a gentlemanly manner and continues 
to ush. He ushes me and the two 
Park Slope gentlemen with the man- 
sard roofs further down the aisle. 
And, while I am still protesting, I 
am herded in a gentlemanly way up 
a short flight of steps, and I find 
myself sitting in a wooden chair, on 
the rostrum, gazing down upon a sea 
of upturned faces and overturned in- 
tellects, and in close proximity to 
the Great Pacifist Himself and 
another pitcher of ice water. 

I looks at him with interest. He 
strikes me as being interesting but 
not conclusive. He wears a frock 
coat, detachable cuffs and an air of 

[18] 



Peace— at Any Price 

ingrowing rectitude. He's had his 
face put up in curl papers for two 
nights for the occasion. 

Well, finally, the people are all 
seated and the clock strikes eight- 
thirty. Seeing it's his turn, a gentle- 
man that looks like an undertaker, 
only not so optimistic, calls the meet- 
ing to order with a short speech. But 
as he doesn't say anything, no harm 
is done. 

Then another man makes a speech. 
He doesn't say anything either. 
When he finishes, everybody ap- 
plauds. I did myself. We were all 
glad it was over. 

Then the chairman, or the referee, 

or the head dove, or whatever you 

[19] 



Peace— at Any Price 

call 'em at peace meetings, comes to 
the front and, with a verbal fanfare 
and a waving of oratorical banners, 
not to mention a blaring of forensic 
trumpets, introduces to the gathered 
thousands the Great Pacifist. There 
follows a great clapping of hands. 
Inasmuch as the heads of most of 
those present contained nothing but 
acoustics, the result was surprising. 

Then comes a hush; it was almost 
two hushes. The Great Pacifist 
clears his throat, takes a drink of ice 
water, brushes back a stray curl, 
leans gracefully against the table, 
and begins to sing himself to sleep. 

He says that to be prepared for 
war is to invite disaster. He says 

[20] 





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Peace— at Any Price 

that we should teach loving-kind- 
ness to the world by throwing away 
our muskets and turning our ma- 
chine guns into sewing machines. 
He says that then the rest of the 
world will see how nice and polite 
and gentlemanly we are and it will 
make them so jealous that they 
won't be satisfied until they're 
like us, and that under our noble 
example the entire world will become 
as peacefully happy as a Sunday 
afternoon meeting of the Epworth 
League, or a kitten under a stove. 
He says that if a man smite you on 
the cheek, turn the other. He says 
that the nation that is too proud to 
fight will, by its example, raise all 

[21] 



Peace— at Any Price 

other nations to its lofty plane. He 
says that a shining example beats a 
shining sword like an ace full. He 
says that the idea that you should 
speak softly but carry a big stick is 
all wrong; that you should carry an 
olive branch and make all the noise 
you can; in other words, that you 
make such a sucker of yourself that 
nobody would have the heart to pick 
on you. 

Well, sir, he goes on, and on, and 
on, and then on some more — and on 
— and still on — ^his dulcet tones ap- 
plying an emolhent to the circum- 
ambient ether until it gets as thick 
and heavy as old port wine. And I 
begins to think to myself that Peace 

[22] 



Peace— at Any Price 

is certainly a wonderful thing be- 
cause it makes you so sleepy. 

I says to myself, ''Let us all have 
Peace and nobody'U be able to stay 
awake long enough to fight." Be- 
neath the soothing drone of the 
Great Pacifist's vocal emanations, I 
begins to figure it all out sleepily 
in my mind. Gallant General Ga- 
zotz will receive from his superior, 
talking in his sleep, an order to 
charge. Rubbing his eyes, he will 
call to his men. But they'll all be 
asleep. When he finally gets 'em all 
awake, they'll have been so sleepy 
they'll have forgot to load their guns, 
j^nd when finally they dash somno- 
lently across the battle field and fall 

[23] 



Peace— at Any Price 

on the enemy, they'll find them 
asleep, too. And if they can stay 
awake long enough, they'll capture 
'em without shedding a drop of 
blood. And then they'll all lie down 
together and go to sleep again. Yes, 
sir, I begin to think that Peace at 
any Price is certainly the cutest little 
idea yet. 

The Great Pacifist chants on. To 
keep awake, I began to count sheep 
going over a fence; because, I thinks 
to myself, if I'm going to sleep when 
I ought to stay awake, the best way 
to keep myself awake is to put my- 
self to sleep. 

But finally, when it doesn't work, 
and I find I'm going to sleep any- 

[24] 



Peace— at Any Price 

how, I begin to sit up and look 
around. 

Now, while, as I say, to me the 
Great Pacifist's speech is as dulcetly 
soothing as "Home, Sweet Home" 
played on a harpsichord with the 
soft pedal on, I suddenly see before 
me, down in the front row, a chap 
that it doesn't seem to appeal to in 
just that way. 

He's a clean-cut, upstanding man 

of about forty, with broad shoulders, 

a little mustache and a wrist watch. 

But don't let that fool you. The 

wrist that the watch is on is as huskv 

as a hickory sapling. And the hand 

at the end of it is lean, and brown, 

and muscular. He has a good head, 
3 [25] 



Peace— at Any Price 

with plenty of room in it to wear his 
brain. On the side of it is a heahng 
wound. There is also a scar on his 
cheek, and another on the wrist, just 
above the watch. 

And he is fidgeting. My, but he's 
fidgeting! Every time the Great 
Pacifist comes to the end of a verse, 
he hitches around in his chair; then 
he crosses his legs; then he uncrosses 
them and crosses them the other way. 
I can see that, in the crude phraseol- 
ogy of the proletariat, the words and 
music being emitted by the human 
orchestrion before him are beginning 
to get his goat. 

But he manages to stick it out all 
right for two more verses and a 

[26] 



Peace— at Any Price 

chorus. But then, just as the Great 
Pacifist is launching into the idea 
that we should turn our swords into 
plowshares, our battleships into 
baseburners, abolish the Boy Scouts, 
and convert the coast defenses into 
Chautauquas, he hops to his feet. 

"One moment," he says. 

He got it. He got several. He 
also gained the astonished attention 
of a hall full of people and moreover 
of the Great Pacifist, who comes to 
a full stop on an antepenultimate 
syllable with both rear wheels locked. 

"Far be it from me," says the Lad 
with the Wrist Watch, "to intrude 
a humble personality into so august 
a mobilization of the English Ian- 

[27] 



Peace— at Any Price 

guage. But inasmuch as the ideas 
that lie ambushed within that verbal 
dievaux-de-frise look to me as 
though they ought to be taken out 
and aired, I rise to a point of dis- 
order," he says. 

Somebody on the platform — ^the 
ringmaster, or the main olive 
branch, or whatever they call 'em at 
peace meetings — says, ''Sssh!'' Just 
like that! 

But the Great Pacifist, waving a 
commanding hand, leans over toward 
the Lad with the Wrist Watch, his 
face wreathed in the smile that won't 
come off in public. 

''What is it you wish, my dear 
young friend?" he asks. 

[28] 



Peace— at Any Price 

''What I wish," says the dear 
young friend, "is the words and 
music of this opera. I've been sit- 
ting here for an hour now, Hke a 
correspondence school cantatrice 
from South Bend listening to the 
Wagnerian cycle in the original 
tongue, and the occasional outcrop- 
pings of lucidity that reach my ears 
cause what little intelligence I may 
have to think it's being insulted, and, 
as the man says, being insulted by 
experts. If I am wrong, I humbly 
apologize, and I would like to be set 
right." 

He fronts up before the platform, 
standing stiffly, heels together. Then 
it comes to me in a minute that he's 

[29] 



Peace— at Any Price 

a soldier. At about the same moment 
I could see the same idea begin to 
coagulate in the place where the 
Great Pacifist thought he did his 
thinking. His smile slips a couple of 
notches. 

"I shall be very glad to explain 
my views more fully to you at some 
other time and place," he says. 

''No time like the present," says 
the Lad with the Wrist Watch. 
"Furthermore, I'm not at all stingy, 
I don't want so much honor all to 
myself. I want all these other folks 
to share it with me." 

"But," protests the Great Pacifist, 
"this is an address, not a debate." 

"Then," says the Lad with the 
[30] 



Peace— at Any Price 

Wrist Watch, "we'll just change it. 
I've had all the address I need for 
one evening, and some left over to 
take back to the boys in the 
trenches." 

In the meanwhile, as you can 
imagine, there began to arise a ripple 
of excitement. The Lad with the 
Wrist Watch was talking loudly 
enough for all to hear. So was the 
Great Pacifist. Also the dignified 
inmates on the rostrum. 

At length a prosperous steel mag- 
nate, of Fifth Avenue and Pittsburg, 
who made peace in public and armor 
plate in private, ventured a sugges- 
tion. 

''Put him out,'' he says. 
[31] 



Peace— at Any Price 

"You can't," says the Lad with the 
Wrist Watch. 

"Why can't we?" says the Steel 
Magnate. 

"Because you'd have to use force/' 
says the Lad with the Wrist Watch. 
"And you don't beheve in force," he 
says. "You've all said so." 

The Steel Magnate's jaw drops. 

"All you can do," says the Lad 
with the Wrist Watch, "is to sit there 
and set me an example. But if I 
don't choose to follow it, you can't 
be blamed for that, now can you?" 

"No," says the Steel Magnate. "I 
mean yes." Then, looking kind of 
batty, he goes into executive session 
with a well-known and justly-pop- 

[32] 



Peace— at Any Price 

ular carpet manufacturer from 
Brooklyn. 

The Lad with the Wrist Watch 
had turned back to the Great Pacifist. 

*'So you don't believe in fighting?" 
he says. 

"Certainly not," says the Great 
Pacifist. 

"Then what have you been doing it 
for?" he demands. 

The Great Pacifist grows pop- 
eyed. He doesn't get it at all. 

"Me? Fighting?" he gasp^. 

The Lad with the Wrist Watch 
nods. 

"Certainly," he says. "You've 
been fighting your head off all your 
life." 

[33] 



Peace—at Any Price 

"And how, may I ask?" queries the 
G.R 

"You may/' says the Lad, "and 
I'll tell you. When you were a min- 
ute old you started to fight measles 
and whooping cough and roseola. 
When you were five, you started 
fighting reading and writing and 
arithmetic. When you were twenty 
you started to fight the world for a 
living. When you were a little older, 
you fell in love with a woman, and 
you fought to get her. Then you 
went into business, and you fought 
your competitors; you had to, or 
they'd have put you out of busi- 
ness. 

"You've been fighting alcohol and 
[34] 



Peace— at Any Price 

its manufacturers, and fighting them 
tooth and nail. And lately you've 
been fighting every right-thinking 
person in this country that's trying 
to take care of you in spite of your- 
self, and it's been dirty fighting, too, 
poisoned gases and boiling oil. And 
then you say you don't believe in 
fighting ! Why, when it comes to 
fighting you've got Napoleon looking 
like my Aunt Eliza's pug dog! 

"But that's all right enough," he 
goes on, ''at least, for the most part. 
You've been fighting mainly just as 
all of us are fighting because life is 
fighting and fighting is life. The bat» 
tie of existence is a fight, and a finish 

fight. It begins when we begin, and 

[35] 



Peace— at Any Price 

it ends when we end, and not before. 
Why, you poor nut,'' he says, not 
in just those words, but that's what 
he means, ''if you only knew it, you're 
fighting here tonight. If you aren't 
just as much of a leader, in your poor 
misguided way, as the Kaiser himself, 
and if all these poor, sap-headed fol- 
lowers of yours aren't just as much 
of an army as are his soldiers, then 
I'll take my foot in my hand and go 
on home. And you're fighting for 
just as much harm — no, a whole lot 
more harm. All he's trying to do is 
to kill the people of other nations. 
You're trying to murder your own. 
And then you say you don't believe 

in fighting!" 

[36] 



Peace— at Any Price 

He eyed the Great Pacifist in 
greater disgust. 

"If you only had a Httle more 
sense," he says, "you'd be half- 
witted.'^ 

The Celebrated Steel Magnate 
falls out of his chair and has to be 
assisted back by the Well-known 
Carpet Manufacturer. 

But the Lad with the Wrist Watch 
is still going strong. 

"So much for the fighting," he says. 
"Now," he goes on, "about carving 
our swords into plowshares and turn- 
ing our torpedoes into teakettles, 
and setting such a shining example of 
peace that the whole world will emu- 
late us. Do you believe that, too?" 

[37] 



Peace— at Any Price 

"I do/' says the Great Pacifist, his 
smile dropping another few degrees. 

"All right, then/' says the Lad. 
"Now IVe been sitting here all this 
time listening to your noble example. 
According to your idea, I ought to 
be exuding loving-kindness at every 
pore. But as a matter of fact, in- 
stead of that, I find myself getting 
scrappier by the minute. Whereat I 
should say that your second theory 
is about as good as your first." 

The place was now beginning to get 
a little lively. All the dignitaries on 
the platform have their heads to- 
gether; but inasmuch as they can't 
figure how they can throw the Lad 
out and still not throw him out, they're 

[38] 



Peace— at Any Price 

stuck. Meanwhile, he keeps right on. 
''Having ascertained," he says, "that 
you don't beheve in the use of force 
and all you are willing to oppose any- 
body with is a high moral example, 
I know now just what to do. But 
before starting in, I might add that 
this is without doubt the softest occa- 
sion I ever happened to run across." 

"But what are you going to do?" 
asks the Great Pacifist. 

"What am I going, to do?" repeats 
the Lad. "I'm going to give you gen- 
tlemen a little lesson in peace. No- 
body believes in peace any harder 
than I do. The fact that I've been 
through six years of war makes it 
even more than a belief; it's a religion. 

[39] 



Peace— at Any Price 

There's nothing so convincing as to 
the horror, the awfulness and the fu- 
tihty of war as having to wipe your 
best friend off your clothes, and see- 
ing women and httle children lying 
dead and mangled in the ruins of 
what was once a home. 

"I've done the one, and seen the 
other; and a lot more things that are 
too horrible to talk about. And I 
tell you that war is the most terrible, 
gruesome, ghastly thing that hell ever 
created to fill its gaping maw. 
There's only one thing worse. And 
that's the kind of peace that makes 
of men slaves and of women concu- 
bines. A nation with the blood lust 

knows no law of man or God. Give 

[40] 




Breaking all records for altitude and sustained flight." 

[See vage 58] 



Peace— at Any Price 

that nation its way, and it turns its 
back to civilization and its face to 
savagery. 

"It takes law and order to make 
most people decent; law and order 
backed by force. What makes chil- 
dren go to school? Force. What 
makes men obey the law? Force. 
What keeps at bay murder, and rape, 
and all the rotten things that men can 
do ? Force. Remove that restraining 
hand of force, and law and order are 
gone. Education is gone, and reli- 
gion. Ideals are gone, and ethics. 
Gone are morality, and decency, and 
faith and hope and charity. And 
when they are gone, down goes the 
human race into the bottomless cess- 
4 [41] 



Peace— at Any Price 

pool of savagery and brutality. And 
that is what means this peace that you 
advocate here to-night/' 

I tell you he was handing it to them 
hot off the griddle. 

"Knowing war as I do," he goes 
on, "naturally I am one of the great- 
est little peace fans the world has ever 
seen. But the first lesson in peace is 
that as long as there's one murderous 
detroyer running around loose and 
looking for a fight, the rest of the 
world has got to accommodate him. 
If every human being on the earth 
believed as you do, that it is unjusti- 
fiable to use force under any consid- 
eration, and I were an unregenerate 
criminal with plenty of ammunition, 

[42] 



Peace— at Any Price 

I could have Rockefeller's money and 
your wife before morning. You 
wouldn't be here making long-winded 
arguments about things you are ut- 
terly ignorant of. I'd have you out 
in Great South Bay, stalking the fe- 
rocious clam. These two well-known- 
to-everybody-but-me citizens," indi- 
cating the Celebrated Steel Magnate 
and the Well-known Carpet Manu- 
facturer, "I could either equip with 
rubber-tired pushcarts, or put into 
vaudeville as a sister act, or boil in 
oil, according to my whim of the 
moment. I could use the Capitol at 
Washington for a garage, and the 
Pennsylvania Station for a bowling 
alley. I could set fire to New York 

[43] 



Peace— at Any Price 

City and build it over right. I could 
make every man in the United States 
work for me for nothing, and I could 
have a harem that would make the 
Sultan of Turkey think he was a 
bachelor, 

"And now just to show you that the 
casual sounds that have been emanat- 
ing so mellifluously from your vocal 
orifice during the past hour are as 
meaningless, when brought into act- 
ual application, as an idiot's dream, I 
will proceed to abolish your edifice of 
asininity, beginning with the top 
story and proceeding by degrees to 
the basement/' 

He bowed politely to the Great 

Pacifist. 

[44] 



Peace— at Any Price 

"Wh — wh — what are you going to 
do now?" demands the latter, a bit 
wabbly. 

''Only this," says the Lad with the 
Wrist Watch. And, taking plenty 
of time, he slowly draws back his 
hand. 

The Great Pacifist sees what's 
coming. He ducks. But he ducks 
too late. Down comes the hand and 
lands full and flat against his cheek. 
Plick! It's a good, fat wallop. It 
sounds like somebody dropping a 
watermelon on a cement sidewalk. 

Following the sound, there falls 
over that surprised and amazed sea 
of upturned faces a hush that you 
could almost hear. It's succeeded bjr 

[45] 



Peace— at Any Price 

a murmur of consternation and other 
emotions. 

But the Great Pacifist, while some- 
what jolted, is still game. He raises 
his hand, commanding silence. Then 
as the murmur subsides, he spakes. 
No, he doesn't speak; he spakes. 

"I fear him not," he says, pointing 
to the Lad with the Wrist Watch. 
''See, I turn the other cheek." 

But he hasn't got it more than half 
turned before the Lad with the Wrist 
Watch lands on it like a pan of milk 
off a top shelf. 

"Before proceeding further with 

the evening services," he announces 

to the foregathered Peace-at-any 

Pricers, while the G. P. is standing 

[46] 



Peace— at Any Price 

there trying to make out what hit 
him, ''I will only say that there is 
nothing personal in this matter. 
What I am about to do, I do only 
for the sake of the American nation. 
And I might add," he says, ''that 
my only regret is that I have but 
one pacifist to beat up for my coun- 
try." 

And, before the vast multitude has 
gained consciousness, he is after the 
Great Pacifist like a cooper going 
around a barrel. Yes, sir, he just 
naturally begins to treat him like a 
carpet on a line. He pokes him in 
the nose, and he hits him in the 
stomach, and he steps on his toes, 
and he jabs him in the ribs, and then 

[47] 



Peace— at Any Price 

he gets the G. P/s head under his 
arm and spanks him a few times for 
luck. After which he props him up 
with one hand, and begins to pull 
his nose with the other. 

The Great Pacifist bellows like a 
wounded gazelle. 

''Peace at any Price, eh?" says the 
Lad with the Wrist Watch. "IVe 
got the peace," he says, giving the 
G. P.'s nasal protuberance another 
yank, "but who's got the price?" 

The G. P. makes a noise that 
sounds like an over-enthusiastic tea- 
kettle. With a pull that brings tears 
to his eyes, he wrenches his nose away 
long enough to ask assistance of a 
wall-eyed dignitary in a frock coat 

[48] 



Peace— at Any Price 

who's standing near by wondering if 
what he's seeing is really so. 

"Oswald!" he yells. "Take him 
off a me! Quick!" 

Oswald comes to. He takes one 
slow step forward; then six quick 
ones back. The Wrist Watch doesn't 
miss him by a thirty-second of an 
inch. 

"The ruffian!" says the Celebrated 
Steel Magnate to the Well-known 
Carpet Manufacturer. "This will 
never do. Come ! We will aid him." 

Side by side, they advance. But 
not far. The Lad with the Wrist 
Watch places the palms of his hands 
against their fat and bewhiskered 
faces, and gives a good, hard push. 

[49] 



Peace— at Any Price 

Whereat the Celebrated Steel Mag- 
nate and the Well-known Carpet 
Manufacturer sit down on the floor. 

Such is their momentum, however, 
that they not only sit down; they go 
further, and perform two of the 
neatest back somersaults I ever saw 
done by amateurs. Then they roll 
over on their right sides and, stick- 
ing out a pair of legs that would 
have done credit to a grand piano, 
they rise to their feet. It's all in uni- 
son, and one of the prettiest things 
I ever saw. If they had only had an 
orchestra to play the Turn, ti-ti-tum- 
tum, um, tum-tum that goes with it, 
you couldn't have told them from a 

couple of acrobatic dancers. 

[50] 




"The pitcher . . . hit the celebrated Steel Magnate in the 
place where he kept his indigestion." 

[See page S5.] 



Peace— at Any Price 

In the meanwhile, the Lad with 
the Wrist Watch, regarding such 
feats as mere routine, has gone back 
to pulling the nose of the Great 
Pacifist. 

Now there isn't a man in the world, 
no matter if he loves peace to the 
point of amorousness, that's going to 
be converted into a facsimile of a 
South American anteater without a 
protest. Muttering something that 
doesn't sound as though it came from 
the Bible, the Great Pacifist aims a 
wallop at the Lad's chin. The Lad 
ducks. 

The G. P., with a great wrench, 

regains possession of his nasal organ, 

and now, thoroughly imbued with the 

[51] 



Peace— at Any Price 

spirit of the occasion, swings with all 
his strength at the Lad's jaw. 

But just when, according to all 
the rules of peace, the G. P.'s fist 
should have connected with the Lad's 
lower maxillary, the Lad stoops. So 
much verve has the G. P, invested 
in his endeavor, that the force of his 
swing turns him around three times. 
That is, all of him turns except his 
legs. They form a neat spiral. And, 
as the spiral is not successful as a 
foundation for the human frame, 
the G. P. wavers for a moment, 
for another moment gives a short 
but creditable impersonation of the 
Leaning Tower of Pisa, and then 

falls. 

[52] 



Peace— at Any Price 

Just what happens after that is 
somewhat vague in my recollection. 
I had been watching the middle ring 
so hard that I hadn't paid much at- 
tention to the rest of the show. 

I remember that at about the third 
yank the entire audience rose to 
its, and other people's, feet. At the 
fifth, the Peace-at-any-Pricers were 
beginning to show signs of going to 
war. 

Somebody went out on the street 
to call in the police that were on duty 
before the building. I think it was 
the gentlemanly usher; for I remem- 
ber seeing him going out through the 
window, backwards, and without 
even hitting the sill. I don't know 

[53] 



Peace— at Any Price 

what his motive power was; but he 
seemed to be breaking all records for 
altitude and sustained flight. 

But by the time the police arrived, 
the disciples of peace were beginning 
to take the chairs apart the better 
to impress their arguments on the 
heads of their enemies. And such 
were conditions that any man, police- 
man or other, had about as much 
chance of making his way through the 
gathering as a rich man has of going 
through a camel's eye. 

I had no more chance to watch 

what was going on out front, because 

just at that moment things became 

somewhat hectic on the rostrum. The 

two Sheraton dignitaries that I'd 

[54] 



Peace— at Any Price 

come in with charged in a body. I 
was too late to duck. And besides, 
there wasn't room. They went over 
me like a steam roller. 

When I got one eye open, the first 
thing I saw was Oswald. He was 
getting ready to soak the Lad with 
the Wrist Watch on the head with 
a pitcher. By reaching out, I man- 
aged to get a grip on each of his 
ankles. Just as the pitcher descended, 
I gave a yank. 

The pitcher missed the head of the 
Lad with the Wrist Watch and hit 
the Celebrated Steel Magnate in the 
place where he kept his indigestion. 
He murmured, "Wumph!" and with 
a long-drawn sigh, leaned back like 

[55] 



Peace— at Any Price 

a tired dromedary against the Well- 
known Carpet Manufacturer. 

The Well-known Carpet Manu- 
facturer, who was interested mainly 
in keeping where the bullets were 
thinnest, stepped back. It was a 
step ill-advised. It took him over 
the edge of the platform. To save 
himself, he grabbed the Celebrated 
Steel Magnate by the coat tail. At 
which the celebrated Steel Magnate, 
to save himseUy grabbed Oswald in 
a death grip; and as I was still fas- 
tened to Oswald's ankles, we all rolled 
off the rostrum together. 

As we thus passed the Lad with 
the Wrist Watch, he turned his head 
to me long enough to say, calmly, 

[56] 



Peace— at Any Price 

''Thanks, old chap." And as we de- 
scended airily to the floor, he turned 
his attention to about sixty Peace- 
at-any-Pricers who by this time had 
organized for a concerted assault. 

Of what followed for a time, I re- 
member even less. I must have hit 
my head on the way down. I remem- 
ber lying for a while, thinking about 
this and that. I tried to recall who 
I was. But it was too much trouble. 
Then I thought : what difference does 
it make, anyway? Not being able to 
figure this out, I sort of gave it up 
and began to think about peace. 
What a wonderful thing it was! If 
only it weren't so terribly rough! 
There was a throbbing in my head. 
6 [57] 



Peace— at Any Price 

But it didn't seem to hurt. It was 
quite the strangest throbbing! 

I came to. The throbbing was the 
watch of the Celebrated Steel Mag- 
nate. He was lying on my head, 
with his watch pocket driven into my 
left ear. 

By much hard work, I got out 
from under him to find somebody else 
between me and the world. It was 
the Well-known Carpet Manufac- 
turer. He, too, was comatose. 
Working my way further north, I 
found myself still fended off from 
existence by the prostrate form of 
Oswald. He was not unconscious. 
Things would have been much easier 

for the recording angel if he had been. 

[58] 



Peace— at Any Price 

I figured that in our sudden de- 
scent we must have entirely turned 
over, whereby the bottom was on top, 
hke in your stomach. While thus 
cogitating, by bracing my feet 
against the Celebrated Steel Mag- 
nate and giving a good shove I 
managed to disinter myself from 
Oswald and came again into the 
light. 

The battle was over. But, oh, how 
terrible had been the carnage! 
Broken chairs, broken heads, coat 
tails, handfuls of whiskers! 

Before me, on the platform, the 
police reserves were unsnarling a pile 
of prominent peace advocates, trying 
to get the legs and arms that belonged 

[59] 



Peace— at Any Price 

to the proper trunks. It was like 
playing jack straws. Even as I 
looked, they removed the last layer. 
Underneath all was the Great Paci- 
fist. 

The Lad with the Wrist Watch 
was standing beside a sergeant of 
police who was talking to him. 

''Say, what's the idea, anyhow?" 
he demanded. 

''Idea?" says the Lad with the 
Wrist Watch. "That was the 
trouble. There wasn't any," 

"But what was coming off here, 
anyhow?" 

"A peace meeting," says the Lad. 

"Peace meeting!" says the ser- 
geant, looking at the Great Pacifist 

[60] 



Peace— at Any Price 

who's sitting on the floor, trying to 
sort out his bumps and looking like 
the corner of Maple Avenue and 
Main Street, Liege. ''If this is a 
peace meeting, me for the trenches 
where it's quiet." 

"Arrest that man/' says the two 
Chippendale gentlemen that I'd come 
in with, pointing at the Lad with 
the Wrist Watch. About two thou- 
sand others joined in the appeal, in- 
cluding Oswald. The Celebrated 
Steel Magnate and the Well-known 
Carpet Manufacturer couldn't join in 
because they hadn't got their wind 
back. But I could almost hear them 
wishing it. 

The sergeant turned to the Lad. 
[61] 



Peace— at Any Price 



"Did you start all this?" he asks. 

The Lad with the Wrist Watch 
nods. 

''What for?" asks the sergeant. 

"Just to show them that you 
couldn't run a country without an 
army and navy any more than you 
can run a city without a police force." 

"Did they think that you could?" 
asks the sergeant. 

"They did," says the Lad with the 
Wrist Watch. 

"The poor nuts!" says the ser- 
geant. 

"Also," says the Lad with the 
Wrist Watch, "to show them the ad- 
vantage of being prepared. I," he 
says, "was prepared. Look at them." 

[62] 



Peace— at Any Price 

Everybody was still yelling for the 
sergeant to arrest the Lad, That is, 
all the Peace-at-any-Pricers were; 
the others were yelling against it. 

''But I don't want to arrest you/' 
says the sergeant to the Lad. 

"It's all right," says the Lad. ''It's 
your duty. Moreover, it's all a part 
of what I want to show them." 

He turns to the sea of up-turned, 
and stepped-on, faces. 

"Friends and fellow almost citi- 
zens," he says, "in closing the even- 
ing's entertainment, I have only to 
add that while peace is the most won- 
derful thing in the world, there is no 
peace except that of strength. An 
admission of weakness is an invita- 

[63] 



Peace— at Any Price 

tion of attack. A chain is only as 
strong as its weakest link, and civili- 
zation only as civilized as its most un- 
civilized member. A dove may set 
a high moral example to an eagle. 
But it isn't in the eagle's disposition 
to let that stop him from making the 
dove a meal for his family. 

'TIere," and he laid his hand on the 
shoulder of the sergeant beside him, 
''is your real dove of peace. He loves 
peace more than any of us. And 
when he finds anybody that doesn't, 
he fixes him so he wilL The fact that 
if he had been here tonight to mingle 
among you, I wouldn't have been, 
proves, I think, my contention. He 

would have hit me on the head and 

[64] 



Peace— at Any Price 

the whole thing would have been over 
before it began. 

"Here," he says, again pointing to 
the sergeant of police, "as I say, is 
your real dove of peace. He makes 
peace possible because he makes its 
violation horrible. He may get killed 
doing it. But that's a chance he takes 
when he's born into the world. You 
can't abolish war. It's too bad that 
you can't. It's too bad, also, that you 
can't abolish sickness, disease, cruelty, 
crime, lying, stealing, raping and 
murder. But you can't abolish them 
because they're all component parts 
of humanity; and to abolish them, 
you'd have to abolish humanity. The 
only; thing you can do is to try to 

[65] 



Peace— at Any Price 

control them. If they get beyond 
control sometimes, try to put them 
back under control as quickly and 
completely as possible. 

In closing, I have just one more 
thing to say. Before you talk any 
more of opposing a barbarian with a 
high moral example, get out your 
Bible and read about Christ. If you 
will recall, Christ was crucified. And 
if they would crucify Christ, where do 
you get off?" 

He turns to the sergeant. "All 
right," he says. "I'm ready." 

He stopped. 

"But what about the police sta- 
tion?" I asked. 

[66] 



Peace— at Any Price 

''Oh/' my friend replied, "I just 
went along to bail the Lad out. I 
was too busy to go to court this morn- 
ing. But he said he'd drop in here 
and let me know what happened." 

He looked out the window. "The 
long arm of coincidence," he mur- 
mured. 

A httle later he of whom we talked 
was with us, tall, upstanding, dark of 
skin, gray of eye. 

''It's all right," he said to my 
friend. ''They didn't press the charge. 
Perhaps they didn't want any more 
publicity." 

"More!" said my friend. "Even 
the War Cry's got it on the front 
page." 

[67] 



Peace— at Any Price 

I was looking at our visitor mean- 
while. 

''Army?" I queried. 

''West Point," he answered. "Phil- 
ippines, Boxer Campaign; and in 
Cuba. Late of the American Legion, 
Aviation Corps." 

"Oh," I said. 

"It was not that I wanted to inter- 
fere in what was none of my business. 
My wife was a Belgian. She was 
visiting her people in Namur, when 
the war broke out. • . . They 
wanted her to leave. . . . But she 
refused. Her father was prominent 
there. He stayed for the example. 
. . . She stayed for him." 

I nodded. 

[68] 



Peace— at Any Price 

''They said there was sniping. . . . 
They took him out and shot him, 
in the public square. She tried to 
save him. . . • They killed her, 
too. . . . 

"She had sent the children to a 
convent, where she thought they'd be 
safe. . • . They got them with a 
bomb.'' 

There was a long, long pause. 

"The littlest one was barely two," 
he said. "She could walk a bit, if 
you let her take hold of your finger. 
. . . The others " 

His gray eyes grew dead. So for 
a long minute. 

At length: "That's why I couldn't 
stand it last night." He spoke very 

[69] 



Peace— at Any Price 

quietly. "It's happened to me. . . . 
I pray to God it may never happen 
to others." 

And that, I think, is alL 

(1) 



